Orienting Engineering Education Challenges
for the Dawn
of Conceptual Age
AB Patki, Scientist ‘G’ & HoD S.Sivasubramanian, Scientist `E’
Department of Information Technology
Govt. of India, New Delhi
Recent wave of a likelihood of a silent burial of
competitive advantages of information technology age and dawn of conceptual age
is likely to have greatest impact on Asia and the focus will be undoubtedly
India with its past performance, track record and success rate which was
demonstrated during the last three decades of 20th century through
Software export, BPO, KPO and similar initiatives including engineering
educational changes. As brought out by Nicholas Carr [1], the evolution of
Information Technology in business world depicted a pattern like railroads and
electric power. These infrastructural technologies provide opportunities to
gain competitive advantages initially. With the increased availability (at
reduced costs) these technologies turn to be ubiquitous in the form of
commodity inputs. As brought out by Daniel Pink [2], Abundance, Asia
and Automation
bring workplace changes and with demonstrable models, depictable capabilities
and scalable activities undertaken in India, the focus will turn towards India
in future for initiative to challenges.
Most of us have seen the impact of agricultural revolution and a larger
section of society is living with its advantages. The merits of green revolution in India, potential of
white-revolution, dairy business in pockets of the world have made a mark in
the industrial outlook towards non-traditional sector.
The next thing on the anvil is moving away from information
age to conceptual age. The Conceptual
age is likely to bring a major technology revolution and Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) will be the area, which will be losing its hold
on the society for economic, social and cultural development. Artificial mind is one such effort, which is
in its advanced stage of conceptualization. Thomas Mak [3] has laid emphasis on
Buddhism theory for artificial mind.
Artificial mind is likely to open its new avenues using microelectronics
and nano-technology on its lower spectrum for physical realization. Soft computing based software systems will
have to be developed as the first generation modules on transitory technologies
leading us from information age to conceptual age. Preliminary investigations done under MISNOS [4,5] project have
shown encouraging results in this direction using fuzzy logic to support
operating system and rough set techniques to facilitate conceptual learning.
Authors have an opportunity to associate during the period of preliminary
technical development work of MISNOS.
It is felt that with the reduction in the digital divide and the gap in
the academic community through the open courseware policy of MIT (so that
anybody can access the MIT courseware), Asia will be playing significant role
for conceptual age academic institutions.
As a consequence, the engineering education will go through
transformation with regard to change in curriculum and admission pattern and
the divide between science, engineering, health areas would be reduced. If we have to be successful and lead the
conceptual age revolution, the impact of right-brain and left-brain
capabilities in the form of new technology development, we have to commence at
proto-type modules using existing technologies. Introduction of elective
courses at engineering under-graduates/graduate programmes encouraging faculty
participation across arts, science and engineering would have to be
initiated. We should learn from the
past experience on a ICT with regard to response and associated risks
relationship in the leadership. M.Tech
level (hardly 4-5 students) were being admitted in the computer course in 1970s
depriving a larger section of society trained in engineering from state
engineering colleges. This path of
educational transformation was non-rewarding UGC and IITs in its present form
have a very slow mechanism to respond to challenges of changes from information
age to conceptual age. It is likely that a totally new scenario may emerge
which can further be accentuated by foreign universities setting up their
education and training programme in collaboration with Indian engineering
colleges in near future.
Professional educational Universities like GGS
Indraprastha University have a significant role to play through its engineering
education programme and a road map could be worked out to facilitate those
faculty and students who are desirous to participate in this new way of
transition from Information Age to Conceptual Age. Scientists at DIT have been introducing some of the concepts to
the engineering students of Jamia Milia Islamic, GGS Indraprastha University
through summer/winter training to kindle research interest. These activities are required to be enhanced
through concentrated consortium oriented methodology with a level of international
participation. Active areas are fuzzy
logic, rough set, genetic proposing and their application for BPO, cognitive
processing, and repository / utility valuation mind. More discussion, debates or acceptance is possible through
professional and academic interaction allowing direct involvement of students
in technology development instead of imposing technology deployment.
The changes brought out in
the Senior Secondary level education by way of introducing subjects like
Information Technology and Computer Programming (Object Oriented Programming
through C++) have played a significant role. A step to orient these high school
students for BPO sector is another bold initiative contemplated in near future.
This leads to a situation of similar type of changes in the engineering
pre-final and final year level coursework where through seminars/elective
courses, where students are prepared for familiarizing with the challenges of
transition from information age to conceptual age. There is also a need to
introduce the fuzzy logic, rough set, neural networks and similar topics as a
mathematical foundation at the first year level for engineering education.
After all, in industrial revolution era, engineering education was also
accommodating the subjects like industrial economics, business management.
Hence, in the next transformation, we have to be open for introducing soft
computing mathematics at first year engineering education level. In order to
reduce the stress, the emphasis of further boosting high school level
mathematics can be at a modified level through topics of calculus, statistics,
and probability theory. Authors’ interaction with academicians evolved a mixed
response. Though the mid 1990s faculty is desirous for such modifications, the
fear of obsolescence is dominating in the senior educational faculty. This has
also lead to a different barrier amongst the deemed university and regular
university engineering students’ exposure for preparing for job markets.
GGS Indraprastha
University through its syllabus reforms programme has recently introduced the
topics like minor and major projects for engineering students. The first batch will have this opportunity
in the next academic year (2007-2008).
While the developmental innovation oriented track can consider “24 hour
Knowledge Factory” [6], route, the research-oriented track can explore issues
associated with transformation from information age to conceptual age.
Considerable design stage work for VLSI chipsets is a prerequisite to attempt
the conceptual framework. Electronics and Computer Science students can explore
these possibilities through Filed Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) downloadable
Application Specific Processor Architecture (ASPA). These could be deployed for
next generation infrastructure and hardware for BPO sector [7]. Software
programming using Ruby could be an additional route. Choice of Ruby is due to
its continuous commitment for development and potential for large-scale
adaptations [8].
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